"Boots… boots… moving up and down again…"
"Men… men… there's no place in the war…"
The words weren't sung so much as hammered into his skull. They echoed from nowhere and everywhere, each beat matching the thunder in his chest. He didn't know whose voice it was, or why the rhythm felt older than the sky itself.
"Six… eleven… that's the count… twenty-two…"
Kairo's eyes opened to blinding fire above. Heaven was burning — its gates of gold torn asunder, its towers crumbling like sand. Smoke rose from the bodies of demigods who had once stood beside him, cut down by soldiers of the New Order. Their blood ran like rivers through the marble streets, and the air was filled with the smell of steel and ozone.
"Boots… boots…"
He remembered trying to run. He remembered the clash of halberds and shields, the desperate shouts of those who still served the Old Gods. Then came the light. Then the fall.
"There's no place… for war…"
The fire in his vision swallowed everything. His body plummeted through clouds that turned from white to ash, from ash to black.
And then — impact.
He lay on his back, gasping in a wasteland of scorched rock and rivers of molten fire. His limbs ached, his bones screamed, but his mind could only circle the question — How…?
Something moved in the smoke.
Then another.
Dozens.
Demons — malformed, skeletal things with too many limbs and too many teeth. Their eyes glowed the color of hunger. They bounded forward in jagged, animal bursts, claws tearing through the earth.
Kairo scrambled to his feet, scanning desperately for a weapon. There was none. The first demon lunged—
BOOM.
A single sound ripped through Hell itself. The sky quaked, the molten rivers boiled higher, and the demons halted mid-charge. Their snarls collapsed into whimpers as they backed away, retreating into the shadows they came from.
Then came the voice.
Deep. Final. Unmistakable.
"Kairo…"
It wasn't summoning him. It was owning him.
Through the smoke emerged a towering figure — clad in blackened armor, horned helm glinting with infernal light. The ground cracked beneath each step.
One of the Seven Demon Generals.
"You live," the general said, voice like grinding stone. A massive chain uncoiled from its gauntlet, slamming into the ground beside Kairo. "Hades will see you."
The chain wrapped around his neck, scorching his skin.
"Walk… or be dragged."